SEO Tools to Increase Your SEO Optimization Efforts
What a lot can change in just a few years! When I wrote the original version of this post in January 2014, the local SEO industry didn't have quite the wealth of paid tools that now exists, and many of the freebies on my previous list have been sunsetted. Definitely time for a complete refresh of the most useful free tools, widgets, and resources I know of to make marketing local businesses easier and better.
While all of the tools below are free, note that some will require you to sign up for access. Others are limited, no-cost, or trial versions that let you get a good sense of what they provide, enabling you to consider whether it might be worth it to buy into paid access. One thing you may notice: my new list of local SEO tools offers increased support for organic SEO tasks, reflective of our industry's growing understanding of how closely linked organic and local SEO have become.
Now, let's open this toolkit and get 2018 off to a great start!
For Research
US Census Bureau Tool Set
Looking to better understand a target community for marketing purposes? You'll find 20+ useful resources from the US Census Bureau, including population statistics, economic data, mapping and geocoding widgets, income and language information, and much more.
Client Onboarding Questionnaire & Phone Script
Onboarding a new client? Reduce repetitious follow-ups by asking all of the right questions the first time around with this thorough questionnaire and easy-to-follow phone call script from Moz. Includes helpful tips for why you are asking each question. As local SEO veterans will tell you, a missed question can lead to unhappy (and costly) surprises down the marketing road. Be sure you have the total picture of an incoming client in clear view before you begin strategizing.
Location Information Spreadsheet
Vital when marketing multi-location businesses, this free Moz spreadsheet will ensure that you've got all the info at your fingertips about each locale of a company.
*Pro tip: When working with large enterprises, be certain that the data you're inputting in this spreadsheet has been approved by all relevant departments. It's really no fun to find out six months into a marketing campaign that there's internal disagreement about company NAP or other features.
Local Competitive Audit Spreadsheet
Now we're really getting down to brass tacks. When you need to look for answers to the perennial client question, "Why is that guy outranking me?", this free Moz spreadsheet will help you document key competitive data. The end result of filling out the sheet will be two columns of stats you can compare and contrast in your quest to discover competitors' ranking strengths and weaknesses. Need more guidance? Read my blog post in which I put this audit spreadsheet into action for two San Francisco Bay Area Chinese restaurants.
Manual GeoLocation Chrome Extension
Watch Darren Shaw demo using this tool to show how a local pack changes when a user virtually crosses a street and you'll quickly understand how useful this Chrome extension will be in approximating the impacts of user-to-business proximity. Works well on desktop devices.
Our industry still hasn't fully recovered from Google removing the Local Search filter from its engine in 2015, and I still live in hope that they will bring it back one day, but in the meantime, this extension gives us a good sense of how searcher location affects search results. In fact, it may even be a superior solution.